White House Wants Jamele Hill Fired from ESPN

Jamele Hill, a Michigan native and one of my personal favorite sports reporters, got in some trouble earlier this week by calling Donald Trump a white supremacist on Twitter. ESPN reprimanded her for it and now the White House is demanding that the company fire her for it.

Earlier this week, while ESPN host Jemele Hill was interacting with her followers on Twitter, she called President Trump a “white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.”

Her statement was picked up by right-wing sports media figures, and then ESPN poured gasoline on the fire when they released a statement on Tuesday saying that Hill’s comments “do not represent the position of ESPN.”

“We have addressed this with Jemele and she recognizes her actions were inappropriate,” the statement concluded…

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about Hill’s tweets during her daily briefing on Wednesday, and said they should be considered a “fireable offense.”

“I’m not sure if [Trump’s aware of the comments.] That is one of the more outrageous comments that anyone could make and is a fireable offense by ESPN,” Sanders said.

Now I don’t personally believe that Trump is a white supremacist. I do believe he’s a racist, but I don’t think that’s the same thing as a white supremacist. But I certainly don’t think it’s outrageous to believe that he is one, not given the fact that he has, as Hill noted, surrounded himself with white supremacists (two of the worst are now gone, Bannon and Gorka) and has received the endorsement of virtually every KKK leader and neo-Nazi in the country.

But think about the line Sanders is taking here. In her mind, it’s perfectly fine to actually be a white supremacist in the White House — after all, she did defend Gorka and Bannon completely — but not acceptable to call someone that, even if there is some evidence to back it up. One gets you a position of influence over the president, the other should get you fired. Gee, what could the difference be? Oh yeah, Hill is black. Funny, that. Sounds like a position a white supremacist would take, doesn’t it?